I was
but a child then, and it is many and many years ago; but this
gray summer morning, I feel what I felt then, as vividly as I did
at the time. I had not learned the great lesson of life then -
endurance, I have scarcely learned it yet, or I should bear
life's burden longer; but that first night's despair has darkened
my whole after-life. For weeks I would not listen to my father's
proposal, to hide what would send all the world from me in
loathing behind a mask; but I came to my senses at last, and from
that day to the present - more days than either you or I would
care to count - it has not been one hour altogether off my face."
"I was the wonder and talk of Paris, when I did appear; and most
of the surmises were wild and wide of the mark - some even going
so far as to say it was all owing to my wonderful unheard-of
beauty that I was thus mysteriously concealed from view. I had a
soft voice, and a tolerable shape; and upon this, I presume, they
founded the affirmation. But my father and I kept our own
council, and let them say what they listed. I had never been
named, as other children are; but they called me La Masque now.
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